Jay and I recently took a four-day trip to visit his parents in SE Arkansas. At the end of this visit we were given a case of peaches that had just been shipped over from Georgia (where a branch office of his parents' business is located).

The peaches were nothing short of delicious. Larger than average, and their fragrance detectible and irresistable clear across the room. And perfectly ripe.

If you know anything about perfectly ripe fruit, you know that also means "about to rot".

Of course, we ate a bunch of them out-of-hand. Delicious, and sweet, and just a touch tart. The way God intended fruit to taste -- and a way that is sadly lacking in today's mass-market, ethelyne-gassed, mega-mart offerings.

But that, of course, didn't even make a dent in the pile.

We also did the "good neighbor" thing and delivered some to our neighbors on either side (each of whom went into mini-orgasms at their aroma).

Now, we had a slight dent in a case of soon-to-be-sludge peaches. Quick action was warranted.

Being a home canner, it was a forgone conclusion that, before the fruit attained sludge status, that I would put the fruit up as either jam or in syrup, but I also wanted to do something else with them while still fresh.

Jay's mom had suggested a peach cobbler, and had provided a recipe, so before firing up the canning kettle, I fished out the recipe she had provided.

It was butt-simple: 4 cups halved or quartered peaches (the size of these warranted quartering), 1/2 stick of butter, 1 cup self-rising flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. That's it.

Heat the oven to 400°F. Put the half-stick of butter in an 8x8 Pyrex pan and let it melt in the oven. Mix all but the peaches together in a bowl, and pour the resulting batter into the melted butter. Don't mix! Drop the peaches onto the batter. Don't mix! Bake for 35 minutes. No peeking.

Deleriously delicious!

"So how", you ask, "did you get those nasty peels off the peaches?"

Peeling peaches (or tomatoes, or chile peppers) is actually fairly easy. Boil some water. A lot of water. Drop the peaches (or tomatoes, or chiles) into the water for 60 seconds. Fish them out (an oriental spider works great this) and drop them into an ice-water bath. Rub with paper towels and the skins slide right off.

Removing the pits is easily accomplished with a grapefruit spoon.

The rest of the peaches ended up being canned with a simple syrup. So now, nestled onto the shelves of my pantry, sit three quart jars of preserved and lovely golden goodness.

In your face, Libby!

Originally, I had planned to make some peach jam along with the perserved peaches. But in order to save time, I just went with the simple canning. Why, you ask?

Because my work had just begun. You see, along with the case of Georgia peaches, we were also given two cases of Bradley County tomatoes. Also perfectly ripe and also about-to-turn-to-sludge unless acted upon quickly. But that, as Alton Brown is prone to say, is another show.